February 2014

There have been many recent press articles, a couple of potentially seminal journalpapers, and some great blogs from leadingeconomists at the World Bank on the topic of Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCTs). It remains a widely debated subject, and one with perhaps a couple of myths associated with it. For example, what is cash from UCTs used for? Do the transfers lead to permanent increases in income? Does it matter how the transfers are labelled or promoted? I am particularly interested in whether UCTs could be a useful instrument in countries with low institutional capacity, such as fragile and conflict-affected states (FCS).

Why UCTs in FCS? UCTs present a new approach to reducing poverty, stimulating growth and improving social welfare, that may be the most efficient and feasible mechanism in FCS. A recent evaluation of the World Bank’s work on FCS recognized, “where government responsiveness to citizens has been relatively weak, finding the right modality for reaching people with services is vital to avoiding further fragility and conflict”. Plus there is always the risk of desperately needed finances being “spirited away” when channeled through central governments. UCTs may present a mechanism for stimulating the provision of quality services, which are often lacking, while directly reducing poverty at the same time. As Shanta Devarajan’s blog puts it, “But when they (the poor) are given cash with which to “buy” these services, poor people can demand quality—and the provider must meet it or he won’t get paid.” We should explore more about this approach to tackling poverty: where and when it has worked, what made it work, and whether we can predict whether it will work in different contexts.

In terms of the World Bank’s twin goals of eliminating extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity, the Middle East and North Africa Region was making steady progress. The percentage of people living on less than $1.25 a day was 2.4% and declining. And the incomes of the bottom 40% have been growing at higher rates than average incomes in almost all MENA countries for which we have information.

Yet, there were revolutions in several countries and widespread discontent. Why?

When the negotiations for IDA17 were wrapped up in December, there was great relief that IDA deputies were supportive of an IDA expansion despite their own significant budget difficulties. As part of that package, the World Bank Group itself pledged to give IDA $3 billion from profits.

This was a generous gesture by the World Bank (albeit a drop in the bucket of total aid), but how good was it for the global development effort? Consider the following—net disbursements of official grants and concessional loans (the category where IDA flows appear) have expanded from $39 billion per year in the 1980s (in constant 2005 dollars) to $85 billion in 2010 and 2011. In contrast, official non-concessional lending (the category where IBRD and IFC flows appear) has stayed steady. The latter was $15 billion in the 1980s and $22 billion in 2010/11. This picture is even more striking when considering the amounts in terms of recipient GDP. Grants and concessional flows to low income countries have gone from 3% of their GDP in the 1980s to 13% today, while non-concessional flows to lower middle-income countries (excluding India and China) have gone from 0.7% to 0.3% of their GDP. In fact, from 2000 to 2009, non-concessional flows to lower middle- income countries (and to developing countries as a whole) were negative, implying that developing countries repaid more to official development agencies than they received in gross disbursements.

Economic growth has returned to Central Europe and the Baltics. With the exception of Slovenia, all countries are expected to see positive growth in 2014 - ranging from a tepid 0.8% in Croatia, to more respectable growth rates of 2.2% in Romania and 2.8% in Poland, to highs of 3-4.5% percent in the Baltic Republics. Europe, more broadly, is also turning the corner and is expected to grow at around 1.5%.

Amidst this much welcome growth, however, one question remains: will economic growth be good for the bottom 40 percent and can they expect to see their incomes grow?

Governments (and donors alike) don’t like dealing with informality. It’s messy, dirty, essentially unmeasurable, and its character varies dramatically. From one industry to the next. From one city to the next. It’s also beset with fiendishly difficult problems – informal firms are often household enterprises (employing mainly family labour, and not hired labour). Thus, they have to make impossible trade-offs between production and consumption.

And yet – the size and the importance of the informal sector in most countries shows no signs of abating. On average the informal share of employment ranges from 24 per cent in transition economies, to 50 per cent in Latin America and over 70 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa. In India, employment within the informal sector is growing, while that in the formal sector remains stagnant. Yet - very little is known about the relationship, whether symbiotic or competitive, between the two sectors.

In a new paper, I notice that in India formal firms tend to cluster with informal firms – especially in industries like apparel, furniture and meal-making. The firms coagglomerate not only so that they can buy from and sell to one another – but importantly, also because formal firms tend to share equipment with and transfer technical knowledge to their informal counterparts. Such technical and production spillovers are found in clusters of domestic-foreign, exporter-non-exporter and high-tech-low-tech firms. It is no surprise then that formal and informal activity could be complementary. Informal can also be an outlet for entrepreneurial activity, especially in places with high levels of corruption, or where formal firms are often mired in complex regulations.

In a previous blog we discussed the factors that have pushed issues of corruption to the centre of policy debates about sound economic management. A related question deals with the sources of corruption: where does it come from, what are the factors that have nourished it and turned it into such a powerful impediment to sustainable economic development? Economists seem to agree that an important source of corruption stems from the distributional attributes of the state. For better or for worse, the role of the state in the economy has expanded in a major way over the past century. In 1913 the 13 largest economies in the world, accounting for the bulk of global economic output, had an average expenditure ratio in relation to GDP of around 12%. This ratio had risen to 43% by 1990, with many countries’ ratios well in excess of 50%. This rise was associated with the proliferation of benefits under state control and also in the various ways in which the state imposes costs on society. While a larger state need not necessarily be associated with higher levels of corruption—the Nordic countries illustrate this—it is the case that the larger the number of interactions between officials and private citizens, the larger the number of opportunities in which the latter may wish to illegally pay for benefits to which they are not entitled, or avoid responsibilities or costs for which they bear an obligation.

There is a fine line between legitimate caution and needless un-decisiveness. At work it’s easy and tempting to get frustrated when you feel that colleagues (or worse your boss) simply can’t make up their mind. You feel your work is being delayed for no good reason and there can come a point when a clear-cut “no go” seems better than more waiting and uncertainty.

In his best-selling book, “7 habits of highly successful people”, Stephen Covey identifies the ability to make decisions on time as a key driver of success. Poor performing and unaccountable leaders enjoy living in ambiguity. They don’t disclose the parameters of their decisions either. By contrast, strong performers are those who recognize that there is no such thing as a perfect decision (otherwise there would be nothing to decide about). Michael Joseph, the former CEO of Kenya’s Telecom giant Safaricom, clearly belongs to the latter group. He is a decider. When asked about the secrets of Safaricom’s spectacular success at a meeting with World Bank staff in Nairobi he explained: “You need to make decisions. Even if you only get 7 out of 10 right, you are fine.”